


Amy's Escape

by malhagie



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Depression, Divorce, F/M, Prompt Fic, Relationship Issues, Tarot, tv sports, unfufillment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:39:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23483221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malhagie/pseuds/malhagie
Summary: "Amy has nothing to look forward to in life. Every day was the same boring thing. Wake up, go to her boring and soul sucking job, return home, do nothing, go to sleep. Rinse and repeat."An original work prompted by a tarot spread:1.	Four of Cups - Rising Action => Meditation, contemplation, apathy, reevaluation2.	Reversed Page of Swords - Conflict => Self-expression, all talk and no action, haphazard action, haste3.	Eight of Cups - Resolution => Disappointment, abandonment, withdrawal, escapism4.	Two of Cups - Character trait => Unified love, partnership, mutual attraction
Kudos: 1





	Amy's Escape

  


  


  


Amy has nothing to look forward to in life. Every day was the same boring thing. Wake up, go to her boring and soul sucking job, return home, do nothing, go to sleep. Rinse and repeat.

  


She couldn’t decide which part of her life was worse, working or doing nothing. Work was exhausting but at least it kept her mind occupied. At home she had nothing to do. All she did at home was sit in her chair and watch whatever mind-numbing program her husband was watching.

  


Usually her husband, Eric, watched sports. She did not hate sports; she has nothing against them personally. She had even enjoyed watching NFL games with her parents when she was younger, but now that was all they ever watched. 

  


Work was slightly better on the boredom level. She worked as an accountant. Day in and day out she stared at tiny numbers on a too bright screen, entering data and double checking the computer’s calculations.

  


As time dragged on her boredom grew.

  


At work she received a new mind-numbing assignment, combing through a giant spreadsheet looking for typos that were disrupting the calculations. At home sports TV was also boring. It was the winter, so the most entertaining sports were on their off seasons. 

  


She returned home from work on a Friday night to find her boyfriend watching some sort of Asian ping-pong tournament. She started off into the space just behind the TV, her eyes unfocused. 

  


She turned to look at her husband. Eric had once been a very handsome man. Now age was beginning to steal his good looks. His hair was thinning, and he was beginning to get a belly. Neither of these things Amy found attractive. 

  


Amy wasn’t even looking forward to the weekend. They were dreadfully boring. All she did was chores and run errands. These activities were not as engaging as work and left her with so much down time that she had nothing to fill it with. 

  


###

  


She woke up that Saturday morning and found she had no motivation to get out of bed. There was nothing to look forward too, no commitments that couldn’t be left till tomorrow, and she wasn’t even hungry enough to eat breakfast. She rolled over and stared at the wall. After an unknown amount of time Eric began to stir. She studied the grain of the drywall as he climbed out of bed. He left the room without disturbing her. After what Amy could only assume was a few hours he realized that she was not getting out of bed and came in to check on her.

  


“Are you going to get out of bed?” he asked gently.

  


“I feel sick,” she lied, laying still, her eyes focused on the wall.

  


“Aw well, is there anything I can get for you?”

  


“No, I just want to rest,” she said, pulling the blankets tighter around herself.

  


He left the room and returned to whatever game he was watching. 

  


Amy felt like crying she was so bored. Laying in bed was just a stimulating as everything else in her life. At least now she had time to think.

  


Sunday was worse. She had chores and grocery shopping to do. She stayed in bed as long as she could. Finally at noon she climbed out of bed. She got dressed to go grocery shopping and when she returned home she cleaned the counter tops in the kitchen and vacuumed the living room floor.

  


Monday at work she could barely focus. Work seemed so much more tedious than usual. All she wanted to do was lay down and go back to sleep. The hours dragged on. She wasn’t even excited for lunch. It was the same thing she ate everyday, a turkey sandwich and an apple brought from home. She listlessly chewed her food. She became more and more lethargic until she was barely moving.

  


In all that time laying in bed over the weekend she had a lot of time to think. She had come to the conclusion that she was bored with life. Now chewing her tasteless food, she realized that this was her fault. 

  


The only way to cure her boredom was to make some changes in her life. Starting today.

  


She tossed the remainder of her food into the waste bin. She bundled up in her winter gear and left the office in a gust of cold air. With a good forty five minutes left in her lunch breaks she had plenty of time to get some Chipotle.

  


That night instead of joining her husband watching TV, she went to her office, mumbling and excuse about how she had a deadline to meet. She powered up her computer and opened her dusty resume. She rolled her shoulders and got to work.

  


Revising her resume took more than one night. But by Wednesday it was ready. Now came the hard part. She wrote and email to an old college friend who had recently started his own company asking if he has any job positions available. She slaved over the short email. Writing it and rewriting it and editing it endlessly until it was finally perfect. On Friday she finally hit send.

  


If that didn’t work she would find something else. Anything else than what she was doing now. She had made a commitment to herself when she threw away that turkey sandwich. That she would change, something, anything. She would retake control of her boring life and bring back the joy that had been missing for so long.

  


Her job wasn’t the only thing she wanted to change. She would change her whole life up. Starting with a few things she has always wanted to do.

  


That Saturday she got up with the sun. Instead of waiting until Sunday to do the shopping she was doing it that day. She had received her holiday bonus check and would be spending it today, and on items besides groceries. She left as soon as the stores opened. 

  


After a few hours she returned home laden with shopping bags. She unloaded and put away the groceries first. She bought a bunch of healthy food, she was going to start dieting and lose that pesky tummy fat.

  


As she unloaded the last of the items into the living room Eric watched out of the corner of his eye. He said nothing, but she could tell that he was starting to tense as she hefted a large bag of dog food onto the floor. She unpacked the kennel from it’s packaging and began to assemble it. Amy heard the distinctive sound of the footrest on the recliner slotting back into place. The TV was muted.

  


“What are you doing?” he asked.

  


“Putting the dog kennel together.”

  


“Why do you have a dog kennel?”

  


“Because I want to get a dog,” she said nonchalantly.

  


“Why?”

  


“Why? Because I’m fucking bored that’s why!” she suddenly snapped.

  


“You’re bored, so you decided to get a dog without asking me?” her husband shouted back.

  


“I haven’t gotten the dog yet!” 

  


And with that last shout she ran out of steam. She didn’t know why she was yelling. She didn’t know if she even really wanted a dog. She abandoned the dog kennel in the middle of the living room.

  


“I’m going to bed early,” she said.

  


“It’s not even after dinner yet,” he husband said but did nothing to stop her.

  


Her face hit the pillow and she was asleep within minutes. She woke up in the middle of the night to Eric snoring softly beside her. After a few moments of staring into the dark she realized that she was wide awake and would not be getting more sleep anytime soon. She pulled herself from bed and wandered into the bathroom.

  


She pulled out the bleaching kit from under the sink where it had been hidden from prying eyes. She opened it and began to read the instructions. After carefully reading them several times over she began to mix the bleach. She stared at herself in the mirror. She took the plunge and began to apply the bleach to her brunette hair.

  


As she waited for the bleach to do its work she powered up her computer to check her email. Much to her surprise her friend from college had replied to her email and from the preview it looked very positive. Suddenly her stomach was rolling and her palms were sweating. 

  


She opened the email. 

  


Her friend was impressed by her resume and her bravery for emailing him. Her offered her a job as a budget manager in his company. 

  


She got a new job. 

  


She washed the bleach from her hair and returned to bed, butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Despite her excitement she slept soundly until morning.

  


She woke before her husband and stood in the bathroom for a long time admiring her new yellow blonde hair in the mirror. Not able to hold his bladder much longer Eric knocked on the door and entered the bathroom. 

  


“Woah! Your hair! When did that happen?” 

  


“Last night while you were asleep,” she replied, running her fingers through it. 

  


“It sure is...different,” he remarked before starting to urinate.

  


“I know,” she left the bathroom, a smile plastered on her face.

  


That day at work she turned in her three weeks’ notice and accepted the job offer. That day during her lunch break, she began to browse new apartments online. 

  


She returned home much more chipper than usual. 

  


Before she could share the exciting news, her husband asked, “What is this?” referring to the large amount of new food that filled an entire shelf of their fridge.

  


“I’m going on a diet,” she explained in a congenial voice.

  


“A diet, why? You’re skinny enough.”

  


“I could be skinnier. And it’s not like it will hurt me to eat healthy,” she said. 

  


“Anyway, I have great news!” Amy said a wide smile spreading across her face. “I got a new job in Seattle!”

  


“A new job? What was wrong with your current job?”

  


“It was boring as hell,” she said dismissively. She explained the job offer from her college friend and his new company.

  


As she speaks her husband’s face slowly drops, and she slowly loses momentum until she just stops speaking entirely.

  


“Does this mean we have to move?” he asked in a much more subdued manner than usual.

  


“Yes,” she faltered a bit, “It’s not that much of a move and I’m sure with the work experience you have you’ll have no problems finding a new job,” she finished with a smile.

  


“But I don’t want a new job,” he said like a petulant child, “Why can’t you stay at your current job?”

  


“Because it’s boring, and I am tired of being bored,” suddenly she was tense and defensive, “I need to make a change.”

  


“I get bored too sometimes, that doesn’t mean I need to get a dog and quit my perfectly fine job.”

  


“My job is not ‘perfectly fine’. It’s soul sucking! I hate it! And I hate coming home to nothing! At least with a dog I will have something to look forward to when I get home!”

  


“What about me? Did you ever consider my feelings about this? I don’t want to move, I don’t want a dog!”

  


“What about you? What do you even do all day besides work at Game Stop and watch TV? I can’t live like this! I need more out of life than sports TV! I’ll take care of the dog. You won’t have to do shit! Just like you always do!”

  


“I do things! I have a job, I make money, I do chores!” 

  


“I do those things things too! You’re not the only person who works in this household!” she took a deep breath to ground herself before continuing, “All we ever do is work and do chores and watch your boring-ass ping pong, and I am tired of it. I can’t keep living this way. Something has to change, and I am taking steps to change my life. You are always free to join me if you want.”

  


“If these new life changes involve all this attitude and all this disruption I’m not sure I want to be involved!” 

  


“Fine! You don’t need to change! You don’t need to do shit! But I do, and you can’t stop me,” she asserted. 

  


“It feels like I don’t even know who you are anymore,” he said in a small defeated voice. 

  


“Maybe you don’t.”

  


###

  


That night Amy slept on the couch. Over the next few weeks Amy and Eric avoided each other like the plague. She slogged through her last few weeks of work, counting down the hours until it was done.

  


On moving day she kissed her husband goodbye one last time. Then she handed him the contact information of her divorce lawyer.

  


As she drove away tears welled in her eyes. She would miss her former husband, her former life, but she knew she was on a better path. A better life.

  
  



End file.
